AU, UN agree on roadmap to steer activities in Somalia

he African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the UN ended their five-day meeting in Mogadishu on Monday by agreeing on a comprehensive roadmap to guide the AU mission’s activities and operations from 2019 to 2021.

The high-level conference attended by the AMISOM and the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) staff agreed on the development and approval of a support implementation matrix which will ensure efficient delivery of logistics to enhance the operational efficiency of the mission.

“We came up with a Support Implementation Matrix from 2019 to 2021. We will be reviewing it periodically to assess where we are with our support. We had outcomes on tasks for AMISOM and UNSOS. The matrix also has outcomes on how we are going to support our operations innovatively,” said Andrew Alele, AMISOM engineer and conference coordinator, in a statement issued after the meeting.

The Concept of Operations (CONOPs) outlines the main activities to be undertaken under the Somali Transition Plan when AMISOM is expected to exit and hand over security responsibilities to the Somali Security Forces by 2021.

Simon Mulongo, deputy special representative of the chairperson of the African Union Commission for Somalia stressed the importance of efficiency in delivering logistics, especially now that mission was in the process of implementing its revised CONOPs and the Somali Transition Plan (STP).

“This is a very important conference in which we were looking at the logistics of our mission. As you know, logistics is very critical. We cannot overemphasize this point. Without a clear logistics system and supply chain management line to our activities and our operations, there is can be no way we can succeed,” said Mulongo.

Clark Toes, the UNSOS Chief of Service Delivery, expressed optimism from the process and called for teamwork from all stakeholders to ensure the success of the mission.

“We have to understand that there are limitations on what we can do. We need to manage our expectations however most importantly we need to work together so we can be efficient and get things done,” said Toes.